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SUSAN SONTAG
time they would send us their real writers.
Anyone, then, who came to Bled looking for a high-level exchange
among professionals must judge the congress a flop. The only exacting
literary paper was one on Robbe-Grillet given by Jean Bloch-Michel, an
excellent piece of work which had nothing to do with anything else that
was going on; the first day of the congress, Stephen Spender made an
unexpected and warmly received plea for daily readings of poetry, which
were tried but never really got off the ground. However, if one suc–
cumbed to the idea that being a writer creates strategic occasions for
being a valuabl'e amateur-at world citizenship? at self-transcendence?–
the congress was elating, troubling, funny, touching, worthwhile. I, for
one, having arrived at the congress as a surreptitious tourist to Yugoslavia,
left an ardent PENnik.
Yet, the ambiguities of PEN's role remain-and with respect to
these, PEN seems
to
be at a turning point. Arthur Miller, the new inter–
national president, elected at this congress, offers PEN the prospect of
new life-which it badly needs after the disastrous absentee-presidency of
Alberto Moravia, during which period PEN almost foundered, and th'e
caretaker-presidency of Victor van Vriesland. (International presidents
serve three years.) But the life that Miller wants to infuse into PEN may
dilute the organization. It is clearly Miller's intention to do two things.
(1) Revive the American PEN, which is, for all serious purposes, an emp–
ty shell. (2) Increase the representation of the Asians and Africans. Up to
now, PEN has been largely a European affair-plus the United States
and a few Latin American countries and Japan, with only a token
representation from other continents. Something of the coming de–
Europeanization is evident from the site of the future congresses. The
one this year will take place in New York (June 12-17); the 1967 one
in Bangalore; Senegal and the Ivory Coast are vying to play host to the
one after that. PEN congresses are expensive-the one in London in
1956 cost about ten thousand pounds-and just about all the European
capitals have had one. (Since its founding, only four congresses have
taken place outside of Europe: in New York in 1924, in Buenos Aires in
1936, in Tokyo in 1957, and in Rio de Janeiro in 1960). And it is idle to
pretend that the de-Europeanization of PEN will not have profound
consequences.
As
it becom'es more and more truly an international parliament.
PEN seems bound to become more "political" and
eVen
less a forum for
discussion about literature. In all honesty, how much writing of high
quality is there in Asia and Africa? How far can the notion of a
writer be stretched? One disgruntled English writer told me in Bled that
the PEN center in British Guiana is made up mainly of local newspaper-
